NEW YORK — On day five of New York's state of siege, as three fallen fire chiefs were lowered into their graves, something changed in the minds of some of the men digging into the earth at ground zero. They did not yet give up hope, but they began to fear the moment when hope will die.
It was a subtle shift, like the thought that struck Rich Nappi as he tore with his hands at the debris of the World Trade Center on Saturday morning. "It hit me that you have to face facts, that it's getting late and chances are getting pretty slim," said Nappi, a firefighter with Engine 7 in lower Manhattan.
It hit Victor Antonucci too, as he burned away at crumpled steel beams with a torch, only to be ordered to cease because somebody thought they had heard a noise from someone trapped below. But after dogs were summoned and ropes were lowered, there was nothing--no survivor, no body, nothing but dust.
"It got me thinking: How long can somebody stay alive under there?" said Antonucci, a sheet-metal worker.
Far from the mournful peal of church bells and the sounding of taps at funerals for the fire officials, the men at ground zero tried to get on with business, just like everyone else in this fractured city. But even as New York finalized plans to reopen its financial district and downtown subway lines Monday morning, no one could forget that three days had passed since anyone was pulled alive from the wreckage.
"Nothing happened the day before, or the day before that, so it gets harder and harder to maintain hope--even though you know you have to," firefighter Joe Casaliggi said after he finished his morning shift of hoisting rubble for the bucket brigades.
The three Fire Department funerals made it tougher for everyone. "Today was a very solemn and difficult day in New York City," said Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who attended one of the funerals.
As the fire officials were mourned, the rescuers dug and the cranes swung their loads, and the death toll mounted. It reached 184 Saturday, with 4,972 people listed as missing. Among them are 300 firefighters, 40 Port Authority police officers, 23 New York City police officers, an FBI agent and a Secret Service agent. About 1,200 missing-persons reports have been received from outside New York City.
Searchers have recovered 159 bodies, 99 of them identified. More than 400 body parts have been recovered. Five survivors were pulled from the disaster site Wednesday.
